A modern Sally Homemaker with a dash of crazy… well maybe more than a dash

Fried Milk

April 20th was the biggest event all year for the student association I’m involved with, Taste of Asia. It went really well, lots of good food and some good entertainment from the Malaysian Martial Arts group. But it was a lot of work.

My day started really early since I was there at 11 to start setting up for the event at 2, and it’s a really good thing because we just got done in time. At 2 o’clock everything was ready; the servers were lined up and ready, as well as there being a considerable amount of people in line, including me. But the line wasn’t moving. About ten minutes of rather impatient waiting later, I was hungry; I finally walked over to the president and asked what we were waiting for. The answer was easy, we needed someone to announce for the event to begin, emphasis on me.

Well, I’m not going to say I didn’t want to be MC and I’m not afraid of the stage, so I took a deep breath and said, in not quite my loudest voice, ‘Welcome To The 9th Annual Taste of Asia Celebration!’ and a lot of other stuff, ending with, ‘let’s serve the food!’ Lots of cheers to that one, I wasn’t the only one who was hungry.

At this point I figured I could sneak back in line and get some of food, but alas, instead I was handed a microphone. I realized, though, that being MC had its advantages. While I went around interviewing the chefs, asking what country they were from, what they had cooked today, etc., they kept giving me samples of their food. Try this, try this. I got to have all the food I could have wanted, without having to wait in line.

One of the foods I got to try was Fried Milk, and I’m a little ashamed to say I had 3 pieces of it. It went really quick, partially because of my loud speaker endorsement of it. One of my favorite dishes that day, I was able to get a hold of the chef after the event and get the recipe from her. Thank you Singing Yvonne Li, for sharing this recipe with me and allowing me to post it here. All credit for the recipe goes to her.

Enjoy.

Ingredients

Filling:

2 cups milk

½ cup sugar

¾ cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon butter

Batter

½ cup milk

1 egg

2/3 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

Oil for frying

In a saucepan over medium heat mix all the ingredients of the filling: milk, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla extract, and butter. Stir continuously until the mixture solidifies. Should take somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes. When mixture solidifies it’ll be a little gluey and very thick.

Spread mixture evenly into a square or rectangular container, a little like rice crispy treats. The container does not have to be buttered or oiled. The filling will try to pull away from the sides and stick to itself, so press it down firmly with your hands or a spoon.

It’ll be really hard to get it to be smooth on the top, don’t worry, you don’t have to.

Cover and cool in the refrigerator overnight, or a minimum of 4 hours.

After the filling has cooled completely, I left it in my refrigerator overnight, take it out and cut it into approximately 1 inch squares.

To make the batter, in one bowl mix the milk and egg white. In a second bowl mix the flour, salt, and egg yolk.

In my opinion the simplest way to separate the yolk from the egg white is to carefully crack the egg and pull it apart vertically so that the egg remains in one piece of the shell. Now pass the egg yolk from one shell half to the other, letting any of the yellowish ooze, which is the egg white, drip down into your bowl. Pass the egg yolk three or four times from one shell half to the other until all you’re left with is the yellow center. If a little of the yellowish ooze remains attached to the center, the yolk, that’s okay.

Heat approximately 2-3 inches of oil in a deep saucepan to high heat, around 400OF. Make sure you have everything ready before you heat the oil, because it will heat very quickly. Also, make sure you wait until your oil is hot enough before you start frying the pieces.

Dip each piece of filling into first the milk mixture, and then into the flour mixture. Carefully drop the filling into the oil and fry until golden brown. These are very heavy so they will not float the surface but stay at the bottom, which is why you don’t want as much oil.

Pieces fry in about 5 minutes. You’re going to want to have some kind of spoon to turn the pieces around every now and then since it’s hard to see when they get done. Also, the oil is going to get really cloudy since a percentage of the flour on each piece is going to flake off.

Drain off any excess oil and serve hot or cold. Also very good with chocolate sauce, but that may just be because I love chocolate. Makes about 30 pieces.

About Megan

I've been a dedicated student and home ed geek my entire life. I'm currently a graduate student in biochemistry but I'll be out of school for the first time since kindergarten in a few months. With the sudden realization that I will have this magical thing called free time, I've decided to dedicate more of my time to my other loves in life, mainly sewing and cooking, and maybe I'll find some new ones too!